


Postulancy

by a_term



Category: Original Work
Genre: A version of mage school perhaps a bit different from the usual, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 16:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_term/pseuds/a_term
Summary: Sometimes the hardest challenges are at the start of a task, help only comes afterwards and there's this weird, cult-like ambiance around, and that other weird ambiance that tells you that everyone, including you, is failing to understand a critical detail.





	Postulancy

**Author's Note:**

> This is cobbled together from a few dozen settings, mostly RPGs because I have no imagination, it's a reaction to all those spartan mage school things, mostly in Jeff Vogel's stuff.

                Misbehaving meant being punished, of course, and Elise hated the way the vinegar that soaked her enchanted robes ate at her skin. It didn't, of course, it was far too weak for that, although by the end of the week, she might not be so sure about that. She hated the hearing room with its intimidating, overdone symbolics and ridiculous potted plants that wasted the entire effect. She hated the way the senior mages – the actual mages – looked at her. Except one of them wasn't senior, she couldn't even claim to be a mere dozen centuries old, she was holding court, front and centre, from all the wisdom and experience granted to her by her venerable twenty-five years of "being Christine"

                A former long-lost friend, a bit too happy with a meat cleaver. The body didn't match, her vanity had clearly grown and with it certain attributes, but the face did, and the name, of course.

                And for a simple transgression, her burdensome postulant's robes had become a nightmare to wear, more than usual, at the orders of the girl sleeping on the other side of the room. She was supposed to bend her neck, to show that she accepted this necessary part of her scholarship. Her head was never supposed to rise above her shoulders, her legs were to remain loosely bound, and another thousand stupid rules.

                Of course, she flouted them, everyone did, especially Christine, when she was still subject to them. Stupid rules had no value outside of being unpleasant, none of that was something you could tell a true mage. She really, thoroughly, completely wanted to scream it in this instant. Half her being was burning inside her, ready to start screaming, the other half trying her best to stop herself, to not throw away five years of apprenticeship, of the most mind-numbing clerical work, of suffering under some grandmaster idiot's lawyering pretence. That grandmaster right now was Christine, and she had arrived a single hour ago. Elise's hands were clenched into fists.

                The pretend lawyer to her left, passed a hand through a perfectly groomed and thinly braided beard – he styled himself after the ziggurat builder kings of antiquity, less scruffy than the originals although they probably washed more nowadays – and grimaced at the pretend lawyer to her right. The humanoid mass of coral and starfish shifted to sit in the lotus position, levitating in mid-air. Its presence was awkward, Elise was a good swimmer and had tried to sneak in the dog's breakfast's abode once, to find something, anything, to learn magic from. She had learned she did not speak its maternal tongue, at least she hadn't been caught. That she knew of.

                It of too many tentacles, mouths and anuses nodded and turned whatever it had for a face at the third pretend lawyer.

                Elise looked at her. Her fists clenched harder. The sorceress Christine looked down at her from the lofty, comfy clouds of her own, mobile, personal Olympus. Her eyelids fluttered, too long eyelashes batting at the air. Elise glowered, then tried to glower harder. Christine reclined back on her pillows, a few grapes flew to her mouth. Elise ground her teeth. Christine stretched with a moan, that possibly-gauze and pearls outfit somehow staying right at the border of obscene, the white rose bush entwined in her hair spreading a little further. Elise clenched her fists just a little harder. One of her nails finally cut in deep enough in her skin to remind her of the vinegar.

                "Ow! Fuck!"

                "Language, dear." The eager, amused tone didn't quite match the languidly sprawled body.

                "You're the last one to be able to say that," commented Mister Babylon. Starfish Face agreed with an astral chime of laughter.

                "Oh, fuck you and your stupid rules! How do you even dare! You tried to skewer our teacher!"

                Christine merely pouted. "Look where it got me, I'm not the one counting potatoes."

                "And with a cleaver! That's not how they work! And, yes, I count the potatoes, what do you do with them? You stuff them in your bustier? You had all the profile and grace of a plank with a pair of mosquito bites! Get off your fucking cloud nine, you bitch!"

                The old king waggled his eyebrows at the echinoderm gang bang, Elise whirled around and grabbed the first thing to come, and Christine jumped down from her cloud, wearing a smile than sang of comprehensive trouncings. The world stood still for a moment.

                "And you're the one who wet her bed the first time she felt a tower move."

                A perfectly common but beautiful primrose started a beautiful arc towards a beautiful face. Christine backhanded it out of the way. Elise backhanded her in the face. It stung worse than the vinegar in the cut.

                "Please don't mind us, we'll be a good audience." Muscle Wizard let himself fall back in a throne, materialised just in time.

                Christine tucked some newly stray blonde hair behind her ear, grinning like the world depended on it. "I'd really rather you left," she said, with a wavering voice desperately pretending to be calm.

                A reply of rocks scraping against each other sounded out.

                "You too. Out." And with a pair of thunderclaps they left.

                Elise felt all strength drain away from her body, leaving only cold sweat in its wake, the anger was gone, replaced with the certainty of failure.

                Christine turned around and strutted towards a window to the celestial sphere, or perhaps just regular space, hard to say in a mage's tower. Her ass was swaying from side to side with a complete and definite lack of style. Forever a farm girl.

                "You have made some truly amazing progress, you know. The previous masters agree and I had to take a look for myself. This isn't standard, not in anyway."

                 Having nothing to say, Elise let out a barely vocalised sound.

                "You still have some way to go, however." Christine turned around, still grinning. "You can afford to be a loud annoyance, you know." Her grin shifted to a more genuine smile.

                "You've already punished me with robes soaked in vinegar for an entire week, I don't think I want more." Elise tried to remain wary, but Christine was looking genuinely relaxed as she once did, like when she had been a fellow student three years ago, with none of that lying down on a magic floating cloud-couch.

                "You have a lot of potential, but you're also a coward, that's not helping you. You need to be reasonable."

                "I'm at year five of acting reasonable," Said Elise through clenched teeth.

                "And I came back, because I was afraid that you do really think that." Christine looked almost sad and walked closer to Elise and the shattered pot. "You need to consider carefully what I am saying, this isn't a stupid little koan you need to solve." She gathered her wits, made a few gestures with her hands and Elise recognised the abominable little bitch of a fellow student she once had been, trying to give shape to her arguments. "I am telling you to be reasonable, I am telling you that your cowardice is holding you back. Not that it is the only thing holding you back, and you are prone to letting… baser instincts overrun it."

                She really was awful with words. "You really are awful with words, aren't you?"

                Christine sighed. "And you are awful at paying attention, maybe this appearance isn't helping? I love it too much to change to another, sorry."

                "At least you grew tits."

                "At least. Now listen carefully, I am borderline cheating for you here." She extended a hand before presumably remembering the vinegar. She opted to snap her fingers, the primrose's pot reassembled itself and the flower rooted itself in place. "You need to be reasonable, and I am telling you that both your anger and cowardice are standing in your way, that isn't cheating in itself, but my presence here could count. I am sending a message."

                "Stabbing people makes you powerful?"

                Christine giggled happily. "Many people think so, indeed. One might say power flows from the tip of a spear."

                "Don't try to sound smart, it doesn't fit you, you bimbo, you gave yourself boobs larger than your head."

                "Don't dwell too much on that, or do, it's fun, try it some time." She cleared her throat. "Even so, you are still almost there, a few more steps, really. Easy ones. Think about the message I am sending."

                "I have to try to stab you calmly?"

                "Please do try, I won't even let my protections strike back."

                Elise didn't feel like stabbing anyone, her anger had collapsed back in a warm and ugly pile of self-loathing. "These rules are stupid." At least she knew that Christine agreed.

                "And that last point is why me being here might be cheating. You know I thought that. And then, what did I do?"

                "You tried to stab a guy who looked like a basalt pillar," said Elise, and then added, "And was probably twice as tough."

                "You focus too much on the stabbing. I'm outright cheating right now, which is yet another hint. I know you have it in you, I've known you for a while, don't force me to pull it out of you."

                "You rebelled. And since you said both anger and cowardice are problems…"

                "Don't stop now, you're almost there." Christine waved a hand at her and her cloud send a few grapes Elise's way. "Make the last step."

                "Which would be, oh, tasty." It was. "About, well, this isn't helping me focus." She slowly ate the last few grapes. "You know, I almost missed you after they took you away. I was almost scared for you."

                "How wonderfully kind of you. Don't butter me up too much, I might doubt your sincerity. Were you surprised to see me here?"

                "I barely recognised you. With your," Elise hesitated, waved her hands like Christine did, trying to shape her words, "New... body? You're taller too, longer legs."

                "But you did, and quickly, too. You turned all white and then red and started breathing like a charging bull."

                "Perfect simile for a farm girl."

                "You can do better than that. Now, guess what we are looking for, I'll give you a hug if you can find it."

                "Is that meant to be motivating?"

                "Yes, my hugs are quite popular, I'll have you know. You'll get it after a good bath, however," said Christine, she motioned at Elise from outside hugging range, "The vinegar, you understand."

                "Yes, that's inventively evil, I wonder what old bastard invented that one."

                Christine's eyes focused on a point slightly to the left and above of Elise's head. "One of half thousand Masters Wu." She paused an instant. "An answer, if you would."

                Elise was quite sure, she had suspected it for a while now. The risks were merely extremely high. "You inflict unfair rules to find people who would oppose them rather than merely bend under injustice." Christine nodded, expression carefully neutral. "You need an act of cold rebellion, someone sane and capable of planning rather than simply breaking loose and trying to slap people in the face?" Elise was growing increasingly hesitant, it wouldn't do to sound stupid in front of an old friend, especially one trying to help.

                "More or less. And, again, you definitely have the potential to do it."

                "I suppose I haven't quite realised it yet."

                "You have started, however, I wouldn't be here otherwise." So they did know. Well, barf-face wasn't being too angry about it apparently.

                "So…"

                "You'll get your hug later, show me something amusing, without hurting any of the other postulants." Christine stepped back and clicked her heels together, there was a thunderclap and a few white rose petals drifted to the ground.

                Elise left the hearing room, maybe a little messing about with the alchemy lab, there are so many funny things that can happen with chemistry alone, a little fluorspar and sulfuric acid, perhaps, and she'd need to break in, of course…

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted a version of mage school that was both a cult and against cults, so I made one.
> 
>  
> 
> That's it, that's all. Just accept that Elise and Christine have some past history and some future, too.


End file.
